InfoFi arrived last year with a big ambition: put a price on information itself. Platforms rewarded users for commentary and social engagement, transforming posts and attention into tradeable value. The model took off, but now as spam rises and yields start to shrink, it faces its first real test.
In 2026, InfoFi is still bubbling, but splitting. One side of the market is drifting toward content arbitrage, where posts become inventory and the focus is on engagement and rewards. The other is evolving into signal infrastructure that filters, ranks, and verifies information before it reaches markets, rewarding credibility over volume.
That divergence is re-shaping the market, and the opportunity.
From Attention Trade to Incentive Compression
The first wave of InfoFi platforms gained traction by rewarding users for producing and amplifying content. Tools like Kaito AI scored and tokenized social engagement, narratives, and even sentiment. Others followed, including Galxe (CRYPTO: GAL) and creator-focused platforms like Cookie DAO.
Yield arrived in the form of tokens or points earned for activity. The result was explosive growth. But as participation scaled, the signal-to-noise ratio collapsed. Cheap AI slop made content abundant, but shredded its value.
As posting volume surged, insight diluted and yields began to shrink.
A Web3 Category Splits in Two
What’s emerging now looks less like a second hype cycle and more like a bifurcation.
On one side is content arbitrage. These models lean into automation, SEO-style optimization, and short-term engagement metrics. The economics resemble earlier SocialFi and airdrop-farming cycles: fast participation, reflexive demand, …